Chapter 24: Mine

We were married at Flanagan's on a Saturday in the fall, with the front doors propped open to the boardwalk.

Lucy had strung white lights over the nine stools.

My father had polished the brass until it hurt to look at.

Frank Mahoney sat in his wheelchair at the end of the bar, in a gray suit.

The nurse stood at his shoulder, and he held a ginger ale in his good hand.

He had come with the three old family heads, the board, and half a dozen men in good coats.

The pit boss had cried before the ceremony and denied it after.

I came down the back stairs in a white dress that had cost sixty dollars at Lucy's aunt's shop.

My father waited at the bottom with his arm out.

"Your mother wore red," he said, and his chin shook. "You'd have beaten her at it."

"Dad."

"Walk, honey. I'm not going to make it through a speech."

He walked me across the floor of his own bar, between the tables, past a hundred faces.

Malachi stood under the lights at the end of the room in a black suit, with his hands clasped hard in front of him.

He watched me the whole way.

I watched him back.

A judge who had known Frank for thirty years read us the short version, and Lucy cried through every word.

Then it was time for vows, and Malachi went first.

"I'm not good at saying it," he said.

He wasn't looking at the crowd.

"I said it to a bunk for two years. I said it to a phone I wouldn't answer."

Somebody laughed softly. Somebody blew their nose.

"You were my best friend before I knew I was in love with you," he said.

"I didn't deserve either one. I'm going to spend the rest of my life earning the second."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Claimed Hard by My Best Friend from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.